Is there something you wish you could say to your departed ones? Leave a comment, or email ancestormessages@gmail.com. Your message will be displayed as part of the Anba Dlo Halloween Festival at the New Orleans Healing Center.

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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

A relationship does not end just because one person passes away. We
carry our dead with us: in our DNA, our memories, our culture, our
hang-ups. Sometimes our guilt. But after their death, we can choose to
have a relationship with the best part of someone, and let the worst
parts go. We can forgive them. We choose what we carry forward.

I originally wrote this for State of Formation because I found it troubling that so many of us seem disconnected or even fearful of our departed ones. The article was a start, but now I hope to help people reach inward to their own psyche and back into their own history.

What message would you give to your ancestors? These can be people you knew in life, or those who passed away many generations ago.

Please leave a comment or email ancestormessages@gmail.com. Your message will be handwritten and displayed in the Spiritual Space at the New Orleans Healing Center for the Anba Dlo Festival. Afterwards, they will be respectfully offered into a fire and the ashes put into the Mississippi near the headwaters. They will make the journey from your thoughts to manifestation, from Minneapolis (where I live) to New Orleans, then back to the headwaters of the river and down to the Gulf. Like our own history, coming forward and looping back. Connecting us.

The past is not silent. It speaks to us all the time. Isn't it time we replied?

Gede (Spirit of death) veve (geometric representation) on fence leading to Ashade Meadows Peristyle, New Orleans

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About Me

Hindu Pujarin. Vodou Priestess. Agnostic thinker. Director of Headwaters/Delta Interfaith. I facilitate conversation about belief and ethics, support the mission of various orgs, and help rebuild New Orleans. I run Social Media for groups I believe in. I write for Huffington Post Religion Section, State of Formation, The Good Men Project, and myself. In (all) my spare time I work on my undergrad degree at Harvard. I live on a farm in Minnesota where I ride horses, restore native ecosystems, and don't get enough sleep.